


Ficlet Archive

by Esahc



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ficlet Archive, Gen, Tumbldown archive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 10:34:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 5,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17021049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esahc/pseuds/Esahc
Summary: A collection of short fics archived from my tumblr





	1. Chapter 1

Anonymous asked

 

Gamzee trying to get karkat to bake pies with him

 

* * *

You sidle up to your moirail on his couch all smiles and miracles, wrap your good arm ‘round his thorax and nuzzle up into his space, “Heeeey, best friend?” 

He turns a page in his novel and says, all flat and mirthless, “No.” 

You pout, “Aw, bro, but I can’t get my bake on all one-fronded, and,” you grin against his shoulder, “If I gotta be asking at any motherfucker for fronds to spare, you got yourself the best most talented—mmph.” Look at that, them fronds all wrapped over your maw like miracles, and your best bro showing that miracle color of yours  _all_  through his face. 

“ _Oh my god_.” you grin behind his hand and lean into his touch, “Fucking fine, if I help you in the kitchen will you  _shut up?”_

* * *

* * *

 

 

Anonymous asked

Gamzee stopping karkat from fighting something

* * *

“Nope.” 

“Gamzee, put me the  _fuck_  down, I’m going to shove his shit-spewing head so far up his own ass he’ll have to open his fucking mouth to see!” 

“Nah, brother, you ain’t gotta get your bother on for such a thing. Useless-ass motherfucker like that ain’t even worth it. Shoosh, now.”

* * *

* * *

 

 

 

Anonymous asked

Gamzee will pick up karkat at any given time, karkat pretends to hate it

* * *

“I’M GOING TO PUT MY FOOT SO FAR UP YOUR ASS THAT—”

“Nope.”

—

“Gamzee.” 

“Hmm?” 

“Put me down.” 

“Nah.” 

—

“Hey best friend!”

“GAMZEE, what the fuck we’re in  _public_  you can’t just pick me up like a plush toy! Do I LOOK like a cuddleplush to you?!”

“Sure as you motherfucking do, brother.” 

* * *

* * *

 

kravkalackin asked

Gamzee getting something very sticky and inadvisable stuck in his hair and karkat helping him wash it out

* * *

“Gamzee.” 

You blink up at your best motherfucking friend in the  _whole entire world._ He’s kinda making a face at you like he’s pissed. You ain’t feeling much up to real talking, so you just kinda go “Hmmm?” at him all questioning. You’re sore all over and battered to hell and back, and there’s colors on you that ain’t  _all_  sacred pigments, and every time you move, a shower of stardust and confetti falls outta your mane. 

_Fuck,_  you love All Saint’s.

“Gamzee what is in your fucking  _hair?”_  

There’s shit in your hair? You pat at your head. “Uh. Iunno.” you encounter a sticky patch. and gotta work to get your hand free while you think. “Blood. mmmh, couple bitty little cupcakes?” there was some of them getting thrown around, you remember, “Ink. uh..heh, paint.  _Lotta_  paint.” That mural was fucking  _great._  Karkat’s got that look to him he’s gonna shout at you though, so you try and focus, “oh!” you grin and pluck at the gooey patch of your hair. “Jelly grubs! Valkka found these motherfucking  _huge_  ones she ordered and we was all up and using’m for clubs ‘n shit.”

“And you just. Left it there. Gamzee you’ve been home for like three  _hours_.” You ain’t really felt like messing with it, though, which is what you’re gonna say, but Karkat’s grabbing your hand and hauling you up outta the pile, and you whine, but you go, ‘cause he’s got that look like he’s gonna get all motherfucking salty at you if you don’t let him fuss, and you still got all these motherfucking good feels up in you of family and joy, so you just get yourself up and draped over his shoulders while he marches you into the ablutions block and sits your bony ass on the edge of the trap. “I don’t even know why I ask, of course you just fucking left it there, ugh, it’s fucking everywhere.” A palmhusk gets shoved at you. “Look up how to get jelly grub out of hair. I’m going to start on the—ugh. ‘ _Paint’”_

“Sure thing, best friend.” you say, indulgent-agreeable to him as you tap around on his palmhusk ‘till you find what-all he’s wanting you to get. Meanwhile he’s picking and plucking at your hair, practiced enough at this point to know without asking how to work the part-dried paint free of your horrorterror of a mane. You sigh and lean back into his touch, humming softly as he works on you, ‘till he flicks you sharply on the horn, and you remember you’re meant to be looking up how to clean gummy candy outta clown hair. You reach back blindly to pap his face anyway, ‘cause he makes the  _funniest_  grumpy noises when you miss his cheek and get his sniffnub instead, “Little miracle brick here says groundnutbutter, or cooking oil maybe.” 

“stop that.” he bats at your hand when you go in for another pap, and you laugh at him, but settle like he wants you to. “Don’t fucking move, okay? I think we’ve got some cooking oil left.” You hum agreeably and shift around rebelliously once he’s out the ablutions block. By the time he’s coming back in, you’re perched on the edge of the sink, trying to get your other foot up behind your head. 

He makes a face like he wants to laugh and swat you and can’t decide which to do first. You grin unrepentantly at him as he hauls you off the counter and sets you back on the edge of the trap to work on your hair. 

It takes for motherfucking  _ever._ He’s gentle though, as he always is, working the oil in and around the goo and picking diligently at it with a comb, grumbling under his breath as he goes, for all you can tell he ain’t  _that_  mad. You’re still shifting restlessly under his hands by the time he heaves a satisfied sigh and moves away from you. “Seriously, Gamzee, you’re lucky I didn’t just cut it out, the shit I do for you…” You twist around to grin at him all wistfully and soft, and he’s looking on you all mock-aggravated, he’s got that gentleness about him that he gets when he takes care of you, all soothed to the core from a job to do and a troll he cares for to do it at. You don’t mind the attention yourself, that’s why you left the goo in there to begin with. 

 

 


	2. Finding Family (1/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is a minor prequel to Hope Of Morning I think. Unfinished for now.

He’s the first one you find. Your very first wriggler. 

Never mind Sister Infernal was the adult on the trip and you strictly speaking was all meant to be at your schoolfeeds.  _You_  found him. 

He’s small, too small for his limbs and too thin for his age, that skinny unfinished look of a troll growing up faster than growing out, and you march up to him, head tall and haughty like you seen the Sister do a hundred times, and tell him the good word ‘bout the church and the faith. 

 He tells you fuck off. 

 You punch him. 

By the time the Sister tracks you down on the seaside cliff where you’re dangling your feet over the edge and he’s babbling some shit 'bout seaglows, his nose is mostly done bleeding and your eye is swollen shut, and both of you are slurring 'round fat lips and you’ve decided to be friends.

***

You figure when the Sister shows up, it’ll be a fast thing. She gives you a look like you’re gonna catch  _hell_  for wandering off, some time when it won’t risk scaring off a new maybe-brother, but you don’t care, ‘cause you’ve found Gamzee, and surely a new brother as much in need of family as this little motherfucker is will buy you a gentler judgement on not sticking close to the Sister as she’d like. 

And Gamzee’s well and truly  _fucked up,_  this is imperial territory, so he’s an imperial kinda motherfucker, with a drone-built hive and delivery crates scattered ‘round, and a coon with violent green sopor all in it. You seen brothers and sisters come outta the empire before, your age and younger and stupid in the pan ‘cause they had all that rich green poison to numb away the lonely and no motherfucker to tell them to ease off. Gamzee ain’t an exception, he babbles on ‘bout this and that, and don’t care much if you listen, but sometimes he kinda just motherfucking  _stops_  mid-word and stares, and you gotta poke him in the sniffnub to make him blink and scowl and bat at you. 

Sister Infernal don’t seem terrible worried about it. She gives him that ghost of a smile that’s mostly softening ‘round the eyes, and lets him tow her about to show her this and that thing in his hive, and ‘here’s where the drones drop shit,’ and ‘here’s where Dad stuck his head through when I was a wriggler,’ and  _then_  you see the twitch on her face, and the wince in her shoulders and you know it’s pain she’s got in her eyes for him, and you’re older enough you got the same kinda pain, ‘cause ain’t no motherfucker your color’s got a ‘dad’ terrible motherfucking long. 

It’ll be okay, though, the Sister’ll tell him how it is, and it’ll hurt him some maybe, but then he’ll be okay, and he’ll come home with you, and Nujall will give him the shit to ease the shakes and in a couple perigees you’ll have a new brother in blood and paint.


	3. Running

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halloween Ficlet

You are running. You don’t know where or why or who you are or what just happened, but you are running, and there’s shouting behind you, and you’re hurt, blood running down your side, wounds screaming across your back, and all you know is running and all you are is fear. 

You’ve lost something, some part of you is begging to turn around and get it. Feet pound behind you and a word is shouted, sharp, hateful? You’re too scared, you can’t tell, but the word shudders through you like bullets, so you drop to all fours, as natural as breathing, and run faster. You don’t know why they want to hurt you, but you are sure in the pit of your heart that you deserve it. 

 

The something you’ve lost is your name. Your whole self. You never liked it much anyway, some little part of you says, but it’s  _so hard_  to think, without the part of you that is  _you._ Maybe you never were much good at thinking either. Blood runs so thickly off your shoulder that you slip in it, you fall hard on the useless meat of your side with a feral animal scream. He’s so close, you can hear his harsh breaths, your ears twist to catch the sounds, pointed and furred and   _wrong._ He says it again, desperate and sad, begging, and it hurts more than the slashes on your back, shoots through you like a knife. You scramble to your feet with claws that are heavier than they should be, shaped wrong, and run again. 

 

You are running. You  _are_  running. Running is what you are. Running and fear and screaming desperation to get away.  You lost your name and your self and your shape, and something else, aching and terrible. You come to a cliff and try to climb it. If you only had hands, if you could only move faster you could escape and it would be okay. You could find your name again. A new one. A better one. One without the mistakes you must have made to be hunted like this. The ledge you have clawed yourself to gives way and you fall, scrabbling and sliding, back to the ground, where you lay, panting and hurting. 

 

There’s the crunch of feet on loose stones. The harsh breathing of someone who’s run too far too fast. You back away ‘till your rump is pressed against the cliff and growl at him, too feral for words, present enough to want to warn him. 

 

He steps forward with his hand stretched out. He doesn’t say _it_  again, his words are soft and soothing, “It’s okay, it’s alright, I’m here, I got you.” as he takes another slow, cautious step forward. “It’ll be okay.” His eyes are soft and a little wet and they make you hate yourself even more. “Shhhh, shhshsh.” Fingers touch your face, smooth the scraggly fur that shouldn’t be there. “I got you brother, best friend.” You shudder, but he’s got his arm’s around your neck, and he’s pressed close to you and beneath the fear and the sweat, he smells like home. “Karkat, best friend, come back.” It’s like a sword in your chest, it’s like the end of a fight, it’s like coming home, but home is a pit full of vipers. It’s your name, it’s your  _self_  all wrapped up in greasepaint and stupid clown pants and hair that  _immediately_  gets in your mouth when you hug him back. It’s love. 


	4. Resting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to Running

It’s different after. The first time he comes and finds you after that long night, he spends an hour or more pacing around the rec block and muttering to himself, pretending to look for a movie to watch. 

It was the humans’ fault, really. Alternia had nothing like the rabid hillbeast that’d savaged him, shadowdroppers looked a whole lot different than what he’d been. The humans called it  _werewolf_  and swore on their worthless motherfucking souls that they didn’t exist. It’s Rose and all her books, finally figures on what it was and what you’d done, bringing him back. You don’t know how you feel on ‘true love’ and ‘true name’. 

When he finally settles on the couch next to you, you don’t object, even if you and him ain’t talked yet, not properly. Even if, by the end of the movie, he’s leaned up against you how you can’t deny it’s cuddling and you like the contact so much you can’t but let him. 

Just, you never had, before. He never liked touching much. too close, too vulnerable, you guess. You just know too much closeness sparked terror in him, so you didn’t push. Figured, was just you being a motherfucking disgrace of a troll, wanting cuddling all the damn time. 

And then, after. (After,  _after_ , you don’t think on ‘after’. You only think on ‘before’ and ‘now’)

But since you carried him home in the pale pre-dawn light, exhausted and worn to the bone, both of you, he lingers around doorways, makes excuse like to hang around where you are. ‘till he breaks or you do, frustrated and tired and wanting hugs as much as he does. He always flinches first, when you get your arms ‘round him, but then he leans into you with a quiet little sigh, and you pull him over to a squishy chair or a ragged couch, and curl up against his animal warmth, lean in and kiss his hair, softer than it was before all this, shorter and fluffy and not at all proper troll bristles.

And where  _before_  you’d been near strangers in all but name, hardly touching, hardly talking, and  _after_ , you’d been- you’d hardly been at all, really, and he’d been a whole motherfucking lot. 

 _Now_  you curled together like folded socks or flatbread ‘round beefgrub.  _Now_  you talked, in low soft voices, in jagged whispers at noon.  _Now_  he craved touch as bad as you did, and hated himself for it as much as you loved him, and the nights find you wrapped around him in the rec block or draped over his shoulders.  _Now_  when the strange pale moon that replaced your cursed green one rises fat and round, and Karkat looks strung tight like he’s trapped, you can wrap your arms around him and whisper his name in his ear, and he shudders and sighs and leans back against you, lets you hold him and talk at him in low, loving tones, and you spend the night sprawled together as you speak nonsense at him and pet his hair and kiss his face while the moon’s call weakens and wanes and finally lets him go at the dawn.


	5. 3AM Gamkar fragment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introspective Gamzee thoughts

You think…you hated him, once.

The fragment of a thought startles you as you watch him sleep, curled into the concave nothingness of your chest, face slack in peaceul sleep for once. Your chest squeezes, looking on him, and it hurts to breathe for a terrifying second. He trusts you. You, who he should trust least of all. Stupid you, who’s so easily lead astray by funny little voices in the dark.

And you hated him, once. A lifetime ago when you were stupid and trusting and lost, and his answers were answers you didn’t like. You trail the pad of a finger, claw carefully leaned back and away, over his cheek to enjoy the play of muscle and hide as he scrunches his sleepy little face at your touch. It hurts to breathe again, for a second. Your pusher steals your breath away, for how much you love this grumpy, stupid, gentle little troll. It hurts, how much you love him, how wrong you were.

It terrifies you, how much of you is his. You thought you hated him once. You couldn’t have been more wrong.


	6. Request Night: Gamzee and the Grand Highblood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked  
> 2 or 7 for the dialogue prompt with Gamzee and the Grand Highblood please?  
> __  
> ooooh. I like you.

Ain’t as fucked up as I look. Motherfuckin’ swear.” 

You think it maybe doesn’t help it comes out slurred, odd pauses between words. Or maybe it’s the way you say it to the left one of him, ‘stead of the center. You can’t help how you sound. You’d been nervous okay, scared enough to have a bit of pie to ease the conscription interview, for all you’d motherfucking  _promised_  Karkat you wouldn’t anymore. 

And it helped, a bit, so you’d figured, a bit more help ain’t a bad thing. And by the time the purple conscription squad showed up at your hive door, you were about exactly as fucked up as you look, probably. 

You didn’t fight them, when they hauled you up to your feet, didn’t resist them taking and riffling through your sylladex and strife deck. You promised Karkat you’d be okay, and trolls that fought the conscription squads weren’t okay. You expected to get hauled up in front of some ancient jade and talked at for a bit. You didn’t expect the ship landed in the supply depot’s lawnring, a big old motherfucking thing. You didn’t expect to get dragged up the boarding ramp, through the halls to the nearest thing to a throne room you ever saw. To get set with surprising care in front of the biggest motherfucking troll you ever saw. 

And here he is, fury crackling around him and exasperation in his face as he asks you, in a voice quiet and underused, raspy with dust and laced through with chucklevoodoo that burns away the last of your drugged calm. “And why the fuck ought we keep a little cullbait wriggler like yourself?” 

And you draw yourself up, pissed and terrified and furious at the troll- trolls? he keeps spinning and moving and it’s hard to remember if it’s one or many. You shouldn’t’ve had so much. “Ain’t so fucked up as I look.” you say, picking the sounds your facegash makes with care. “Motherfuckin’ Swear.” And you’re pulling your clubs as you move, ‘cause you figure, they’re gonna cull you anyway, you might as well go out swinging. 

You’re caught up by a massive claw in your shirt. You’re lifted off your feet and the Grand Highblood looks on you all fearsome and angry, face creased in a scowl. 

And then there’s a sound. A sharp, painful sound, and you think maybe you hit your mark after all, as you’re dropped to the painted floor. You look up and there he is, head thrown back as he makes that sound. And you see him pause and look at you with bright mirthful eyes and see he’s been laughing; rough and unused to it. A hand twice the size of your face falls between your horns and musses your hair and you’re too scared to shove it away. “Yeah, you’ll do little one. Shithive motherfucking crazy with the hellmirth. You’ll do just fine. 


	7. Request Night: Gamkar, Gamtav, pets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked  
> one inexplicably bringing home an animal and refusing to drop it at the shelter so they and the other have to take care of it - gamtav, alternately, gamtavkat in a stable trio?  
> \--  
> !!! fuck that’s cute.

“No.  _No._  Absolutely not.” Behind you Tavros sneezes again, pitifully. this is ridiculous. 

“Aw  _Bro._  She’s so little and scared and hungry, though.” the little black  _thing_  in his hands lets out a pathetic mew. 

“Your matesprit is  _allergic_  bulgemunch. And there’s food and things at the shelter. where humans take care of things like that.” 

“Allergy shots are, uh, a thing, you know, uh. Karkat. That I can even, uhm. Afford.” And there’s the mumbling traitor behind you, and you whirl on him. 

“And you fucking knew about it, so what the  _fuck_  is wrong with you? You’re going to have another one of those  _things_  if it stays here.”

He sets his jaw and you groan. Fucking Tavros. “She’s a, uh. she. And she says her name is Sadie, and she also will stay out of my, um, block. Because I can commune with animals, and can, uh, explain that to her.” You’re losing. you’ve probably already lost. “And the doctorturer said I only had the uh. uh. The resperitory sac attack, because of me not taking the proper medications, and failing to seek, the proper, um, human-style doctorturing, for a treatable and non-cullable illness.” He grins at you, utterly unrepentant. “And I bought cat things at the store, when I went to pick up my um. proper medications, for the proper human-style doctorturing I’m seeking.” 

Gamzee’s gone around to stand next to Tavros and his face is that horrible, terrible mix of caution and hope that never fails to make you melt. He holds the thing out to you. She mews again, and kicks her tiny black-toed feet in the air. “I’m not fucking calling her Sadie.” you finally say, because you’re weak, and you’re utterly diamond-whipped, and she has bright purple eyes. “I’m not calling you Sadie.” you repeat to the tiny cat. 

“She says she will also answer to, uh.” Tavros puts in, “Umbrasyl, the hope devourer.” The cat wriggles around in your hands and claws her way up to your shoulder, prickling your skin with every step, until she can make herself comfortable on your shoulder. 

“Yeah, fuck. fine. Umbrasyl the fucking hope devourer. Sounds about right for an evil apex predator.” The cat starts washing your ear. You think you might’ve lost control of your life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tags were important on this one
> 
> # MY WRITING # GAMKAR # GAMTAV # TAVROS AND KARKAT HAVE A FRIENDLY KISMESSITUDE I THINK # THEY'RE NOT LIKE WRITTEN IN THE STARS ABYSSAL # BUT THEY CAN ANNOY THE HELL OUT OF EACHOTHER # AND THEY BOTH LOVE GAMZEE A LOT # UMBRASYL IS AN EXCELLENT NAME FOR A CAT # TAVROS SUGGESTED IT # TAVROS DEFINITELY WATCHES CRITICAL ROLE # KARKAT IMMEDIATELY GOES OUT AND BUYS THE MOST OBNOXIOUSLY HUGE CAT FURNITURE # BECAUSE HE IS WHIPPED AND ALSO HE LOVES LITTLE UMBRA # SHE'S ADORABLE # AND HE IS VERY VERY WEAK # ANONYMOUS


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked  
> 6\. "Hey, hey, calm down, they can't hurt you anymore" GamKarrrrrr :^) ?

He’s all like. Breathing hard and shit, the way you get sometimes when you’re freaking the fuck out your own self. There’s red pumping out a gash on his forehead, abberant bright, some beautiful mutant god-color, like he been blessed by the Lord or some shit. “Hey, hey,” you reach your hand on out to him where he’s backed up against the wall fangs bared, blades in hand all shiny blue-green where he was holding off the lowblood motherfuckers trying to cull him.

Stupid, trying to off a color so pretty and rare, downright blasphemous to waste such a hue. “Calm down, brother, they can’t hurt you no more.” You step forward and gotta hop back to dodge the sickle striking at you. “Alright, hush your salty self down.” You talk low and soothing like your brothers’ve talked at you, times you’re scared so bad you look like this troll, all wild-eyed and scared. “Ain’t no one can hurt your pretty self any motherfucking more.” He strikes for you again, but this time you see it coming enough to dodge the blow and catch his wrist, stepping close so he can’t get you with that wicked inner edge of his free sickle. He struggles a minute, but you’re highblood strong, and he’s little and scared as shit, and it ain’t too terrible long before he gives up, slumps against you as you wrap your arms ‘round him and shush him some. “Shhh, shoosh now.” you hear his breath gone wet with tears he don’t wanna let fall. “You’re safe, bro, I got you now.” you tell him, “’s gonna be okay, ain’t no one gonna get their culling on proper ‘round me.” What with you a subjugglator in your own right, even now The Benevolence’s taken the throne, and highbloods’ve gotten told to get their care on at them of warmer hues, ain’t no one fucks with purples wearing paints, ‘specially when they get their stubbornness on. And you intend to be stubborn about this troll. 

It’s not just he’s cute, which he is, maybe a sweep less old than you, all that solid bulk and padding that comes with the kinda lusus as actually motherfucking feeds a brother, round-faced and round-toothed and round-horned, it’s the desperate fighting, the way he was still going even though you can  _feel_  the panic swirling through him even now. The fact he’s still too blind-scared to talk, but not to give up and go loose and limp against your side as you pull away the slightest bit. “c’mon, We got ‘coons aplenty up at the church, ain’t no one gonna fuck with you there, ‘specially with me around.” He stumbles up and follows you when you tug his arm a little, and lets you wrap your arm around him in a protective hug that has his lean into you and sigh. You think he’s coming back to himself a little. You can’t wait to introduce him to your brothers, they’re gonna love his adorable little self. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked  
> "the two of them going down to the beach and one getting sunburned really badly so the other slathers them with aloe gel when they get home" GamKar ??? Can totally see this happening (:  
> It’s been a Day so I’m punking out and just filling this gamkar one. Sorry to the other anons, I’ve got ideas for y’all’s just not the spoons. Hopefully I’ll get them later.

“Not a word.” His ears are all pinned-back ‘n grumpy, and he’s so motherfucking cute, you kinda hate you can’t give him a big squeezy hug just now.

“Didn’t say a motherfuckin’ thing best friend.” you know he’s all mad but you can’t help the grin you know is showing in your voice. 

“I mean it Gamzee. Don’t even think it.” You mix up a little more sopor concentrate into the spikeplant goo and rub it carefully into the violent red skin where his chitin’s flaked off. 

“Bro I ain’t even know what you’re talking about.” you lie. It’s not your fault he didn’t wanna wake up from the warm little puddle of moonlight you’d ended up napping in. You got yourself a funny Karkat-shaped patch of unburned hide on your belly, so it ain’t like you got off easy neither. Your best friend ain’t even a little psychic, but he still growls and hunches his shoulders as much as he can without hurting himself, which ain’t much. “How’s I supposed to know lowbloods ain’t resistant to getting burned like you all motherfucking said?” you can’t help but tease him a little. You’re used to getting a lil’ toasty out on the shore, but Karkat’s so used to staying inside all the time, you think he maybe ain’t so much.

“Shut up.” he says, all sulky and grumpy, “Past me is an idiot and an asshole and we’re not talking about him anymore.” 

“Could’ve been worse. Only lost a lil’ bit of chitin.” You dab some goop on the tip of one blistery ear, holding it from flicking away as you rub it in a little. “And we woke up pretty quick. I ain’t terrible burned at all.” you do the other ear. His hornbeds were protected by his hat at least, so you can scritch your fronds through his hair without fear of hurting him any, and watch some of the hunched-over grumpiness slip out of him as his eyes slip closed. “Anyhow it’s nice to get my care on at you, sometimes, with all the good you do at me.” Probably he’ll molt early, the internet says, so it ain’t even gonna be that long before he’s a healthy and anonymous grey again. “Nice so see your pretty color for a bit, too.” You drop a featherlight kiss between his horns and dodge his grumpy flailing hands as he bats you away. You catch a hand and kiss that too, which makes him squawk more and swat you for being a ‘disgusting over-demonstrative clown fuck with a creepy blood fixation’. “Come on, best friend, it ain’t even that bad.” You finish with his shoulders quick as can be, and pap his cheek with your goopy hand. “There, good as new.” You haul your wincing way up off the couch, and go to check if there’s any dim season treats left in the thermal hull. You kinda got your remembering that frozen dairy confection’s good treatment for being sunburned, and Karkat’s been talking ‘bout some propaganda marathon meant to be on this morning. Just ‘cause you got a little toasty don’t mean you gotta end your date just now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More important tags
> 
> # ANONYMOUS # GAMKAR # MY WRITING # IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A NICE BEACH DATE # AND IT WAS FOR A LITTLE BIT # THEY WENT SWIMMING AND MADE A SAND CASTLE # AND HAD AN ILL-ADVISED PILE IN A NICE WARM PATCH OF MOONLIGHT # THAT TURNED INTO SUNLIGHT AFTER THEY DOZED OFF # SILLY BOYS # KARKAT IS MOSTLY EMBARRASSED BECAUSE HE READ ON THE INTERNET ONCE THAT LOWBLOODS DON'T BURN AS FAST # AND IT'S TRUE # BUT IF YOU FALL ASLEEP AND SPEND LIKE AN HOUR IN THE HALF-SHADE # YOU'RE GONNA GET BURNED # ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE A PASTY LITTLE NERD LIKE KARKAT # GAMZEE'S BEEN BURNED SO MUCH HE'S ACTUALLY GOTTEN DARKER # SITTING OUT WAITING FOR HIS DAD # SO HE DIDN'T BURN AS BAD


	10. Story fragment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An incomplete story fragment that may or may not be continued

It starts like this, it is dark, and you are afraid.

It’s dark. The way your scared little breaths sound, the dark fills a very big room. There is something warm behind you. The deep, rumbling breathing is almost comforting, if you close your eyes and pretend to forget where you are.

You could almost imagine it’s your dad, huge and silent and distracted. Busy with net mending and fish cleaning, but resigned to your small, curious presence, playing with a scrap of netting or practicing your knife sharpening, or juggling fishbones to tease a reaction out of him.

You close your eyes tighter and curl around yourself and pretend you don’t remember Dad’s cold eyes, his stony face. You pretend you understand, because it was tribute time, and your house’s turn, and you weren’t strong or clever or brave like Kurloz is. An heir and a spare. That’s how it’s done.


	11. HoM Ficlet:GHB and Gamzee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nellynee asked  
> Here's a distracting prompt I hope. The first time Gamzee met the Grand Highblood. Or rather the first time Gamzee left an impression on him, if those are separate occasions?

He’s so  _big._  

You draw back a little behind The Infernal. (Kalton says she’s meant to be called  _Sister_  Infernal, but Kalton’s a lying-ass motherfucker who told you the pink moon’s a big fat sugargrub you can catch if you run fast enough, so you ain’t listening to him anymore.) He’s looking at you all funny, all way up in the sky where his face is all being. You peek out a little from around Infernal’s tree-trunk leg and gulp quietly. He’s so  _old._ His horns got turns and turns and  _turns._  He comes down from where his face is way way up in the sky, and goes down on one knee so he’s only half again taller than your horns. “Hey little brother.” he says, in a low steady voice, reaching a massive old paw out to you, and you’re so nervous with that bigass adult, not even all proper lusus-white like Infernal, you don’t even move till he scruffs your hair, a little rough so your head gets pushed around, and you duck away and growl at him all fierce as you can. 

There’s a moment where he don’t move at all, and then his face splits and all his teeth shows as he throws his head back and laughs like a thundercrack, “Damn motherfucking straight, little fighty one.” He scruffs your hair again, and you make a face, a little bolder now, and you slap his hand away all grumpy and scowling, “Welcome to the freakshow, littlest brother.”

* * *

He’s so  _small._  

You know wrigglers come in small, but you never saw one with your bitty little horns, nor your pretty looping symbol.  And you are so large, a head again taller than your tallest brother, and he’s  _so motherfucking small._

Were you ever so small? Your hand is larger than his whole nugbone. His fists, when he beats them against your hand all salty from your greeting, could encircle your wrist, maybe. If he tried with both hands. You shouldn’t tease, not a brother so fresh to the family, but he is so  _small_ , and so fierce as he snarls up at you, a yipbeast to a behemoth, and you are  _so motherfucking proud_ , your descendant, sopor-dazed and undersized, perhaps, but your motherfucking  _descendant_ , and so strong even now. “Welcome home.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EXTREMELY important tags
> 
> # SISTER INFERNAL AND ALL THE OTHER 'LUSUS CLOWNS' HAVE THEIR HAIR BLEACHED-WHITE # I HAVEN'T DECIDED IF IT'S STILL LIME-WASHED # BUT THAT WAS DEFINITELY THE TRADITION # KURLOZ IS NOT A TRAVELING LUSUS-TROLL # HE IS A VERY LARGE AND VERY INTIMIDATING ADULT WARRIOR/LEADER # HE IS AT THIS POINT IN LIFE # VERY BAD AT CHILDREN # BUT GAMZEE IS VERY SMALL AND VERY IMPORTANT


End file.
